


jam #08: Into the Real World

by PokeNirvash



Series: Kinky Kunoichi [8]
Category: Jam-Orbital, Original Work
Genre: Eviction, Gen, Hungry for Apples?, Kabukicho, Net Cafe, Peptalk, Shinjuku, Tokyo (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-22 23:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeNirvash/pseuds/PokeNirvash
Summary: Two weeks have passed since either of them paid their dual investigation any attention. Since his suspension from the force, Naokuu's motivation has dropped to zero, and is only getting lower as time passes. And since finding his admirers bound and gagged with a message from the Kunoichi warning him to cease his pursuit of Muchise, Shin is left at an impasse: should he push forward regardless, or just give it up?





	1. Prologue

“Hey, what’s the big idea!? You can’t kick me out just like _that_!”

“Of course I can! There’s no place for jobless freeloaders like _you_ here!”

“Come _on_ , this is all happening so suddenly. Can’t you give m-”

“Ohhhhh, no! Don’t you _dare_ give me that dumbass excuse, you _got_ that!?”

As the argument with his landlord reached its crux, Naokuu was flung out of his apartment, past the open door and onto the outdoors walkway on the second floor. His back hit the balcony railing running opposite the side-by-side grouping of doors, making him bounce forward an inch or two as he came to a stop. He let out a pained grunt, slumping down to the walkway floor with his head hanging down.

The skies above the rental apartment building in Setagaya were gloomy. Light enough to be seen as mere overcast and not a rainstorm, but gloomy nonetheless. It did nothing to help his current situation, his landlord marching to the door’s edge. He was a man of average size, with a lanky physique bordering on anorexic, with a bloated stomach to boot. His taupe-grey hair was heavily receded, exposing his forehead and the front third of the top of his head to almost impressive effect, and his mouth was missing some teeth, one on top and two on bottom as far as the incisors were concerned. He stood in the doorway, in a white chest-stained wifebeater whose bottom hem stopped short of his belly button and grey cotton sweatpants with a black drawstring, staring down at Naokuu with hands on his hips and a cock-eyed glare.

“There’s no _way_ you haven’t been hearin’ my knocks these past two weeks! If anything, your dumb ass should’ve seen this _comin_ ’ the moment you got discharged, you detective wannabe!” He pointed down at Naokuu as he continued, his right index crooking as it loomed over the soon-to-be former tenant. “Now get off my property, and don’t come back ‘til you’ve got my money!”

Naokuu wasn’t intimidated in the slightest by the man that literally threw him out of his apartment. He sat himself up out of the slump he landed in, his left knee raised and his left arm resting atop it. His hair was another inch longer, the bangs grazing past his upper eyelashes, and his facial hair was in fuller form, still short but encompassing the lower half of his face in a mass of dark brown. He still wore his week-old T-shirt, though his unzipped black jacket covered up any visible pit-stains, and he put on a pair of denim jeans over his equally old boxers. Whether _that_ was to look only a tad more civil for his landlord or to avoid walking around in his underwear following this inevitable eviction was unclear. Even so, the glare he gave the middle-aged proprietor of his former residence narrowed seconds after his command, his scowl widening in tune.

“Fine. Have it _your_ way.”

With those parting words, Naokuu made his grand exit from his former residence. Swiftly and forcefully, he jerked his car key upwards as it rested firmly in the ignition, the engine revving to life with an aggressive roar. As his right hand tightly gripped the 2 o’clock position of the steering wheel, his left grabbed the transmission and shifted it down from P to R. Almost immediately, he slammed on the gas and backed out of the parking space. Even in the midst of his reckless maneuver, from the hard push against the accelerator to the equally strong shift to the brake, tires screeching at both the sudden start and sudden stop, he looked over his shoulder, out the rear window of his Civic. A habit from his driving school days, assuredly. With another grunt through clenched teeth, he turned his head back and shifted the transmission to the standard drive mode. He stepped on the accelerator again, the engine once more revving at as full a throttle as he could make it as he sped out of the parking lot and onto the two-lane street. The Civic swiftly turned into one of the opposite lots, then dropped a couple of inches onto the road as it made a swift right turn, the rear bumper jutting out and barely missing contact with the Shibuya Ward Police squad car, still parked on the side of the road by its lonesome. The vehicle eventually straightened itself out as it sped off along the straightaway, to location unknown.

Gojiki’s lackeys, as they had the past two weeks, sat in the squad car’s front seats. Both witnessed Naokuu’s explosive departure from the lot, the ponytailed lackey in the passenger’s seat having turned his head to look out the side window as the Civic passed them by.

“Looks like he’s on the move.” He turned his head back and buckled his seatbelt. “Prepare to pursue.”

The shorter-haired lackey in the driver’s seat grinned wide, buckling his own seatbelt one-handed as his right gripped the top of the steering wheel. “Hn. It’s about damn time. Been getting’ _sick_ of waitin’ around for him to do somethin’.”

The squad car slowly pulled forward, shifting to the left before turning around on the main street. Its speed gradually increased as it turned around, and once it faced the direction in which Naokuu was headed, it took off just as fast, blazing down the barren stretch of asphalt in pursuit of its target.

Up on the second floor walkway of the rental apartments, the landlord stood at the end facing the street, where the staircase up was placed. He held one hand on the rust-brown railing as he watched the squad car chase after Naokuu’s Civic, in spite of the head start the former had on them. It wasn’t long before it too disappeared behind the turn following the straightaway.

“I see,” he quietly commented as the early morning wind blew through what hair surrounded his balding head. “So _that_ explains it…”


	2. Act 1

It was minutes past dawn in Tokyo, and much like in Setagaya, it felt as if the barely colorless overcast had encompassed the entire city. That much was for certain in the Nakano ward, where the blanket of clouds laid above made it impossible tell if the sun had risen or if it was still hiding the civil twilight. Even so, as expected for 5:30 A.M. in the suburbs in the ward’s Honcho neighborhood, there was barely anybody outside. Along the southbound downslope due west of Yamate-Dori Avenue, the only living being above microscopic scale was a black cat, sitting in the middle of the asphalt passageway as it licked at one of its front paws and then started running it multiple times over its head and left ear.

“I’m heading out.”

“Alright. Be safe out there.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

After bidding his mother farewell for the morning, Shin emerged onto the downslope past the foyer entrance and the porch gate beyond. The moment he laid his skate shoe-clad foot on the asphalt the first time, the black cat quit cleaning itself and dashed off down the incline. He took a few more steps before stopping in the middle of the road, facing the concrete wall and the ivy-infested chain-link fence built atop it. He gazed upwards past it, the trees peeking out above the fence’s hidden top edge, and the electrical lines above those, his sights ultimately aimed at the overcast sky. His eyes still baggy from waking up so early just to leave the house, he kept his gaze fixed for several seconds, long enough to question whether he was going to actually go anywhere.

Before long, those several seconds ran their course for Shin, and he lowered his head with closed eyes and a sigh.

“I’d better get going,” he muttered to himself, despite the lack of anyone else traversing the beginning stretch of his morning commute to places unknown.

He turned to his left and started walking along the downslope in his attire of choice: a space cadet blue long-sleeve shirt with the number “720” in crème colors stitched into the front, and a pair of denim blue jeans that fit somewhat tight around the waist but left enough breathing room for everything below. His fingers rested in both jean pockets to the second knuckle from the tips, his thumbs hanging out as they did. With each step he took south, towards the Kanda River serving as the border for his neighborhood, the sky to the east started to get a little brighter, a tinge of yellow presenting itself in the cloud cover. Even so, it failed to change how dreary it made this already barely lukewarm day for Shin.

********

The green metal railing overlooked the multi-modal morning bustle along the Ome Highway in Shinjuku, remaining stationary as cars and trucks of various makes, models and colors moved across either lane of the road, and pedestrians either followed their lead on the sidewalks or waited at the crosswalks for them to stop. Facing west, those who would’ve stood there, on the passage the railing acted as a safeguard to, would have numerous sights of Shinjuku’s western end presented before them, from the Ome Highway Pedestrian Bridge and the Shinjuku Nomura and Sompo Japan skyscrapers beyond them in the distance, to more mundane and closeby attractions like the blue traffic signs on the other side of the rails and the mess of electrical lines above. But nobody was there. Not that they would be.

After a few seconds of calm, the morning train running along the Yamanote Line’s outer circle suddenly sped down the tracks beside the green railing, heading north from Shinjuku Station to Shin-Okubo. As the sleek rolling stock, with its yellow-green trim, moved five cars beyond the Ome Highway underpass, it was passed by a similar train on the inner circle, southbound to Shinjuku Station. They, plus multiple trains spread across the other semi-parallel-running rail lines heading towards and away from the Shinjuku hub, further demonstrated the subdued yet hectic nature of the early morning commute, even on a day like this.

At the other end of Nishi-Shinjuku, though traffic was lighter there than it was closer to the ward’s center, the presence of vehicles and individuals on their way to their various daily destinations was just as apparent. Cars traveling down a curved one-way street, stopping and starting at the vertical 止まれ on the asphalt several seconds between one another. Pedestrians taking advantage of the lull to traverse the crosswalk intersecting the solely eastbound lane. The four-lane bidirectional arterial serving as the true intersection housing vehicles whizzing by whenever one of the stopping-and-starting cars wasn’t turning left or right onto it. More foot traffic along the one-way’s adjacent asphalt sidewalks, a green temporary fence modeled after the sides of milk crates along the left and an abstract pop art mural to the right. As sparse as it was compared to the Ome Highway, it remained constant.

And then there was the border between Shinjuku and Nakano: the Kanda River. One of several bridges for cars and pedestrians laid over the thin and shallow tributary, the main railing made of light green metal with nine thin Y-shaped pickets between each concrete post, and one-foot tall pillars located between the rust-colored asphalt sidewalks and the main road. Vehicle traffic was practically nonexistent at this early hour, the usual suspects instead taking the form of eastbound pedestrians. Salarymen and workers in suits and ties and with briefcases, taking the short route to their jobs while checking their watches. High school students in uniform, one male and two females, looking up at the sky and silently chatting amongst one another about why the cherry blossoms haven’t bloomed yet. And others besides them, one such individual walking at a slow yet steady pace, the bottoms of his jeans lightly bouncing forward with each step.

Shin walked on the sidewalk to the left of the one-way river crossing, sticking closer to the overlook railing than he did the streetside bollards. One salaryman walked in front of him, and another behind him. Also behind him was a man in his early 20s with messy hair wearing a teal hoodie, looking down at his MP3 player as he listened to it through a pair of buds. The speed of his steps wavered none with each one he took, his hands still in his pockets and his back slightly hunched, enough to seem casual without straying from a proper posture. He stared forward as he made his way past the bridge’s midpoint, some of the bags under his eyes having disappeared. Those that remained only added to the early-morning weariness on full display, thanks to the wide grimace across the lower half of his visage. After several seconds of walking without a change in expression, he slowly inhaled through his nostrils and opened his mouth slightly, blowing out air through the left side of either lip.

He had no solid destination in mind as he traveled among the ever-changing pedestrian flow into Shinjuku. At one point, in Nishi-Shinjuku, he was among a lighter flow of people on the side of the street opposite the Shinjuku Mitsui Building. The colossal black monolith intimidatingly stood over the street and the vehicles traveling either way along its length, and the same could be said for the collection of trees positioned before it, in spite of their being less than a quarter its height. Like the drivers and other walkers, Shin paid the building and its plethora of single-panel windows wrapping around each floor no mind.

At another point, he was on the Ome Highway Pedestrian Bridge, the raised gray-floored passage flanked on either side by raised portions of light blue metal with white balcony railings situated on top. There were more people here than on the ground. Some walked, others stayed put and looked out at the street over the balcony. Most of the former were salarymen and office workers, and most of the latter were younger folks, in casual garb and school uniforms. There was even the occasional pair of parents, one of whom held a child in their arms, pointing out at what laid beyond the bridge. Shin maneuvered his way around a group of schoolgirls in long-sleeved uniforms with dark red tartan skirts looking out at the Ome Highway intersection, headed for the Y-intersection splitting between a continued stretch of bridge and one of the staircases leading down to the street proper.

Then he was on the other side of the railroad tracks, ambling as he did down the southern pedway of Yasukuni Street in Kabukicho. Pedestrians were more prevalent here than in Nishi-Shinjuku, but less so than on the pedestrian bridge from before. Casually dressed residents and tourists waited at intersections to cross the street at their respective lights, while others made their way up and down the streetside thoroughfare. It was around this point in his spontaneously changing route across Shinjuku that he ducked into one of the buildings to his right, slipping out of the pedestrian crowd without so much as an eye-catching movement.

The place he was heading was a small grocery, which was somewhat of a rarity in the area of Shinjuku more known for its restaurants and clubs than supermarket retail, big or small. Of all that comprised its interior structure, one of the most stand-out facets about it was a poster greeting users into the fresh produce section. It consisted of an extreme close-up on a top-down view of a stemless Fuji, with white vertical text running along the right side.

リンゴにひだるいか？

Hungry for Apples?

“I’d like to buy these,” Shin said as he set a plastic bag full of green apples on the check-out counter, alongside a folded-up newspaper that laid underneath.

“Alright,” the cashier replied. “That’ll be 1200 yen.”

“Of course.” Shin took two ¥500 coins and two ¥100s out of his pocket and dropped them onto the laminate countertop.

“Thank you,” the cashier said as his hirsute hand reached out and collected the coins, pushing them across the counter to his side. “Have a nice day.”

After everything was paid for, Shin stepped through the sliding doors into the grocery, the entrance located within the covered first-floor nook of the multi-story building it belonged to. There wasn’t much outside the doors in, besides several 15kg bags of rice on a wooden pallet and a sign advertising such, a red vertical banner with “米穀15kgでの販売”, or “15kg Rice on Sale” in bold yellow text. The newspaper was tucked under his left arm, which held the bag of apples to his person. As he turned to the street exit, he reached his hand into the opened bag and took one of the apples out, holding it to his mouth and taking a small bite. He chewed it slowly, mouth closed, and swallowed it silently. Not two seconds passed after the consumption, and he reacted to the taste with a squinted gaze and a widening grimace.

“It’s sour…”

********

Elsewhere, cumulus clouds of a darker and slightly wispier variety than the overcast it laid against floated by over Japan National Route 20 and the above-ground portions of Shinjuku Station on either side. Not only that, but the ellipse-shaped public courtyard sitting two stories above street level. The raised platform was supported by eight concrete pillars: three on the north sidewalk, three on the south sidewalk, and two on the meridian separating the six lanes of traffic into three in each direction. Two staircases emerged from either vertex on the major axis, both leading to the second floors of either side of the station. The southbound staircase entered the station on its side, while the northbound stopped and split into two perpendicular staircases emptying out to either side. Atop the courtyard, tiled with alternating black, gray and brown rectangles of varying size, were six benches: three on one side, three on the other, each facing one another. Several of the people taking advantage of the space sat on those benches, but most preferred to either stand or just walk across from one side of the street to the other. Finally, a ticker was placed on either side of the courtyard, just above the median pillars, displaying the present time: 09:15.

The sole user of the middle bench on the east side of the courtyard, a man in his early 20’s with short black hair and drab casual clothes, stood up from his seat and walked off, in the direction of the split staircase. He entered the flow of other casually-dressed pedestrians, showing no prominence in the crowd as he headed forward, and then down. He turned right, splitting from the majority as he mozied on down the other half of the way to street level. His eyes closed, his left hand on the railing and his right in the pocket, he traversed each step as if he had no care in the world.

Passing this man as he moved down was another young man, making his way up the steps with newspaper and bag in hand. He bit into the mostly-eaten green apple in his right hand with a loud chomp, and in contrast gave it several soft chews once it was in, the barest sliver of his whites showing with every consecutive micro-bite.

In that time, no one thought to sit down on the bench the descending man just left. The thinning two-way crowd of people using the courtyard as an above-ground footbridge just continued on their way, never thinking to take a rest. The same could not be said for the ascending man, who dropped the core of his apple into the trash can next to the bench with a solitary swish from the plastic bag within.

He set his bag of apples down on the black metal bench before he did the same, the contents down to only two Granny Smiths. Once seated, Shin took the newspaper out from under his arm and unfolded it, taking a glance at the front page headline. Below the newspaper’s moniker, 東京発信 for Tokyo Dispatch, and next to a close-up grayscale of a lit-up fluorescent bulb, the vertical text read as follows.

日常の蛍光灯の復活 全国的なエネルギー危機の可能性？

Resurgence of Everyday Fluorescent Lighting: Potential for Nationwide Energy Crisis?

An obvious hypothetical fluff piece posing as big news. A sure sign of a slow news day. Shin’s half-lidded stare perfectly conveyed how unimpressed he was with this faulty attempt at press trickery. But at the same time, he also knew what this slow news day meant. And as such, he started shifting the paper around. He moved the front section to the back, followed by the next section, and the next. He went to the point of tapping both sides of the paper with his fingers to keep them in order, to make sure no back part of the paper stuck out and distracted him. As he did, the pedestrian crowd thinned out even further. Within seconds, save for the occasional couple or down-on-their-luck loiterer occupying the surrounding benches, the raised courtyard was empty. It was only then that Shin opened the front page of the newspaper section he wanted to look at.

D 地元音信

D – Local News

He flipped the page of the section once after opening. Then again. And again. Until he finally reached the page he was looking for.

**“A little over a week has passed, but I can’t get it out of my head.”**

He narrowed his gaze a little more as he started reading the article he sought out: a text-only editorial in the left corner of the penultimate page, taking up no more than a quarter of non-archival paper.

「定命長高校卒業入射」一週間の回顧展

A One-Week Retrospective on the “Sadameicho High Graduation Incident”

**“The Sadameicho High Graduation Incident. Contrary to the school’s reputation, it had nothing to do with its then-burgeoning delinquency problem.”**

As he read through the retrospective, the image of Sadameicho’s campus, the front gate just a stone’s throw away from the building proper, came to Shin’s mind. It was reminiscent of the morning of graduation. Early morning, bright skies with decent cloud cover… The only difference was, nobody was there.

**“Five female students, all graduating seniors, suddenly disappeared the night before Sadameicho’s final graduation ceremony as a co-ed institution.”**

Then he thought of the gym. The multiple rows of folding chairs on the wood laminate floor with a walkway splitting them in two. The curtains-drawn stage in the back of the building. Done up for graduation, but like the outside of campus, with nobody present. It was how he imagined it, at least at first.

**“The next morning, ninety minutes before the ceremony was set to begin, all five were found on the school’s gymnasium stage; bound, gagged, and indecently dressed.”**

His visual train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the periodical roaring of car engines, traveling at whereabouts of 40 kilometers per hour – some slower, some faster – on the urban highway running under the courtyard. As the vehicles, mostly civilian cars with the occasional taxi and truck mixed in, traveled in both directions, the clocks above the median-situated pillars changed time, from 09:29 to 09:30.

**“The girls were missing for only thirteen hours and were found before any missing person reports could be filed.”**

But in spite of his mental imagery grinding to a halt, Shin kept reading, holding the same position on the bench as he did when he started. Pedestrians started moving across the courtyard again, salarymen now mixed in with the casually dressed younger crowd that normally frequented the space, if the morning buzz was any indication. Their movements were sporadic, and also slow, like a series of afterimages in the periphery of Shin’s vision.

**“What’s more, they all lacked prominent physical injuries, and aside from the distress of being abducted and the humiliating circumstances of their discovery, none suffered any emotional trauma.”**

But the periphery didn’t matter. His eyes were glued to the paper, glued to the article, the bags of his lower eyelids thick with intent.

**“And yet, in spite of this positive outcome, several questions still remained.”**

The mental imagery returned, this time of the explicit events. The five girls’ bodies, moving in protest to their kinky predicament. Utsugi’s back-and-forth rocking and Shirei’s shifting. Chikuru’s wiggling and Akari’s stillness. Yukisa’s protest-filled struggles.

**“Who kidnapped them? Why were they kidnapped? Why _them_ specifically?”**

His equal parts concerned and exhausted expression as he looked down at them.

**“And the message…”**

The portion on Shirei.

我らは一度あなたに戒ました。

We warned you once.

**“Who was it aimed towards?”**

The portion on Utsugi.

我らは再びあなたに戒ません。

We will not warn you again.

**“What business did they have with the abductors?”**

The portion on Yukisa.

これは我らに異議を唱える人々に起こることです。

This is what happens to those who disobey us.

**“Why use those girls against them?”**

The portion on Chikuru.

あなたが我らの使命を再び障るなら、

If you dare to interfere with our mission again…

**“Was it _really_ a warning?”**

The portion on Akari.

無意味であることをあなたに示します。

…we will show you how pointless it truly is.

**“Or was it mere scare tactics?”**

His staring down at all five girls, wriggling in their binds, moaning and groaning through the gags stuffed tight into their mouths, in apparent understanding of the message. All that, followed by a fade to black.

**“Not one clue could be determined from that incident. Not the abductors, or their motive, or even the recipient of their message.”**

After bringing his return to recollection to a close voluntarily, Shin’s eyes met the final passage of the article, running vertically down as the rest of the text in both the article and the paper did.

これらの質問に対する答えは決して来ないかもしれません。

…the answers to these questions may never come.

**“At least, that’s what the press says. But I know _everything_.”**

With his sole business with the newspaper, the whole reason he purchased it to begin with, fulfilled, Shin closed the local news section and moved it to the back of the stack of total sections. He returned the last of the five sections to the back also, the front page once again in front as intended. He folded the paper at its crease and set it on his lap.

**“The Kinky Kunoichi were the ones behind their abductions. Their motives were indeed a threat. And the one they were threatening…”**

He closed his eyes for several seconds, letting the gentle wind of the overcast morning blow through his hair. When the wind died down, he opened his eyes. His intent had vanished. In its place, worry.

**“…was _me_.”**

He thought back to it again. The moment he discovered the girls in the gym, later portions intercut with the earlier.

**“Every day since then, I thought about the incident. What I saw of it with my own two eyes.”**

Shin’s rush from the gym’s side door to the aisle between the folding chairs, skidding across the floor as he made his turn. Utsugi and Shirei’s motions of uncomfortability. His dash down the aisle to the ladder leading onstage, tripping and almost falling midway. Chikuru and Akari’s more subdued motions. His first-person dash to the ladder up it, and onstage. Yukisa’s angry, muffled protests. Each memory of him a few seconds long, those of the girls much shorter in comparison.

**“The sight of them onstage is burned into my memory. The girls, trapped in the Kunoichi’s signature bondage.”**

He slowed to a stop in his memories, caught his breath with a series of open-mouth inhales and exhales, and looked down at his five admirers, bound with rope and duct tape, gagged with either cloth or a standard ball, and microfoam wrapped around their torsos for mere aesthetics.

**“Sure, I may have wanted them to shut up and leave me alone more times than I can remember, but I’d never have wished something this excessive on them, let alone through such intimate means.”**

His eyes trembled as he looked down at them. He blinked, and his gaze shifted down at the floor under his feet, the trembles ceasing.

**“Maybe my turning over a new leaf with them that past week made me think that, but still…”**

In the present, he looked down also. It, too, was a sad stare, one fraught with only the gravest of concerns.

**“For as much as I think about them, it’s something else about it that _really_ makes me uneasy. The warning they left behind.”**

He reached into his bag and grabbed one of the remaining pair of apples inside. He held it up to face level, opened his mouth, and took a big bite out of it. A loud crunch, followed by several softer chews, a sliver of his teeth visible with every movement of his jaw.

**“They say the effort I’ve put in is useless. But _how_? _How_ is it useless? All I want is to take Muchise back from them, to keep her from suffering under them any more than she already has!”**

As he continued sitting in place, taking big bites out of the same apple, the world continued to move around him. Pedestrians on the courtyard, cars down below, even the clocks on either side of the above-ground structure.

**“What they’ve done to others is bad, yeah, but I’m not looking to interfere with _those_. Saving someone they’ve had more than their fair share with shouldn’t be so disruptive, right?”**

The clock turned over again, from 09:48 to 09:49. Shortly after, Shin stood up.

**“Then again, who _knows_ with the Kunoichi?”**

He grabbed his bag of apples, gripping it near the bottom where the remaining fruit sat, but left his newspaper behind on the bench. He turned left, heading for the stairs leading into Shinjuku Station’s south-side second floor. As he joined the increasing pedestrian flow, he stared forward, the bags under his eyes somehow thicker after doing nothing but sitting and reflecting on the recent past.

**“For all _I_ know, all the toying they’ve done to her could’ve turned her into some sort of brainless bondage-loving gag-slave. Maybe _that’s_ what they mean by ‘pointless’.”**

Within minutes, he was in the lower level of Shinjuku Station, standing by the train tracks at Platform 14. The sign at the platform had the number on the left side, and a thick yellow-green line in the middle, separating the two portions of informatory text, in both Japanese and English

山手線 原宿・渋谷・品川方面

Yamanote Line – for Harajuku, Shibuya & Shinagawa

**“Then again, they _could_ mean abducting more people to warn me further.”**

As cloud-filtered light shone into the boarding station’s ceiling windows, Shin stood one step behind the yellow line in wait for the next train, alongside all the twentysomething men and women in casual and business casual dress, with the occasional late-running salaryman apologizing over the phone to their boss mixed in. He looked forward, one hand in his pocket and the other gripping the apple bag.

**“I wouldn’t put it past them. Kidnapping’s their forte. But who would they use against me after those girls? My parents? My sister? Mr. and Mrs. Yokoshima?”**

The train arrived at the platform seconds later, suddenly appearing in his vision with great speed in spite of it slowing to a stop. As his hair blew from the artificial gust accompanying the front car, Shin narrowed his gaze.

**“Or maybe…”**

The fourth in a series of digital rings sounded through the speakers of his smartphone, going into his ear as he sat in one of the end seats in the row running along the train’s length, by the door. Once the ring finished, the other end went to voicemail.

“Hey. Naokuu here. I can’t talk right now, but if you’ve got somethin’ to say, leave it after the beep.”

The beep sounded, but before it could finish, Shin pulled the phone back and tapped the screen once, ending it prematurely. He stared down at his phone screen, phasing the standing crowd of passengers before him out.

**“Every day, I try to reach him. But I _always_ fail to get through.”**

He tightly gripped the edges of his phone, the left with his fingers and the right with his thumb. As it shook in his hand, the on-screen window remained the same, a diagonally positioned phone receiver icon with a red X through it, and two lines of text below.

頼柴直空

無回答

Naokuu Tanoshiba

No Answer

**“It’s one thing for him to spend a whole week on his half of things, but _two_?”**

His hand stopped shaking and he looked up with the slightest confidence in his eyes.

**“Something’s up.”**

It wasn’t long before Shin finally arrived at his stop in Shibuya, though it took longer for him to reach his destination beyond Shibuya Station. At the corner of Routes 246 and 305, he stood on the sidelines to the lull in passing traffic along either street, under the elevated pedestrian bridge where most people who were out for the day were using to cross the street. It was shadier under there than it was beyond its cover, but Shin opted to stand on the edge, looking up at the building before him.

警視庁渋谷警察署

SHIBUYA POLICE STATION

**“He _could_ just be busier than normal, but I doubt that’s the case. If he isn’t suffering under a heavier workload, then the Kunoichi already got to him.”**

Shin stared up at the sign above the front entrance on the intersection corner, gulping softly as he prepared to approach. He lifted his foot off the ground, prepared to take the first step forward…

**“But even then, I don’t know. I’d _like_ to know which one it is, _really_ , but…”**

Then, all of a sudden, he heard a rustling sound from the bushes off to his side. He gasped, pulling his foot back and turning to the right. He expected something bad in that direction, his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape as he expected some ne’er-do-well to be standing right there, in the form of a street punk or someone more mythical and dangerous.

But all he got was a cat. A black cat with a blue right eye and yellow left eye. It stood in place in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at Shin with its heterochromatic orbs. And then, without a sound from its throat, it dashed off across the street. Shin stared at where it was for another second more. And then, he sighed in relief. Subdued relief with a tinge of disappointment, but relief regardless.

**“I’m probably overthinking things.”**

Several hours of wandering on foot later, Shin had ended up in Shinagawa. The corner of Higashishinagawa connected to the main island, situated across from Tennozu Isle. But where Shin was, he wasn’t facing Tennozu. Sitting on a bench within the nook of a flower bed wall, consisting of a single wooden seat fastened to the top edge in back, he sat to the side of a canalside walkway paved with square cement bricks, looking across the canal at Minato Ward on the other side, where it intersected with another canal. The afternoon sky was lighter than the morning, though the pale orange tint in the thinning overcast wasn’t enough to ensure any clarity above.

**“Still, whether or not it’s complete coincidence, the timing of recent events is almost scary.”**

As he sat, he worked on finishing the final apple in his bag, a few bites down from becoming nothing but core. As usual, one big bite, several smaller, with a sliver of his teeth showing through his mostly closed mouth. His stare forward wasn’t so much fearful anymore as it was grouchy, but it still looked as tired as it had earlier that morning.

**“My admirers’ abduction, the Kinky Kunoichi’s warning, and Mister Tanoshiba’s neglect to call me back. It’s like they’re telling me I’m wasting my time, trying to save Muchise.”**

He swallowed the contents of his final bite, standing up as he looked past the black balcony railing at the wide open canal space, only a white tour boat passing through.

**“They’re telling me _that’s_ the reality I have to face, and _not_ seeing things through to the end, like _that’s_ some sort of pipe dream.”**

He gripped the core with his hand, pulling his arm back, and then gave it a forceful throw forward. The remnants of the apple went past the railing and into the canal, landing in the water a few seconds after launch with a comparatively miniscule plop.

**“I can’t let myself think that way. I can’t admit defeat this early on.”**

He straightened his posture and lowered his arm, clenching his fingers into a tightly locked fist. What’s more, he looked forward, a determined gleam in his eyes.

**“I can’t lose hope!”**

That expression didn’t last long, however. His eyebrows went from furrowing in resolve to turning upwards in doubt. His frown didn’t change, but his eyes said all that needed to be said.

**“But all things considered…”**

His fist twitched as it kept clenching for one more second, but it too loosened up, hanging limp by his side.

**“…it’s hard _not_ to.”**

He stood in place as he looked out at the canal beyond, the tour boat passing by with a faint sound of the horn. As it entered the canal-canal intersection, he lowered his head, looking down at the ground, and himself.

“I’m hungry…”

********

With the over-speaker music having reached a lull of silence, the sizzling of beef against the miniature grills was the most significant sound resonating throughout the moodily lit yakiniku establishment. It might as well have been the only sound for Shin, sitting at a corner booth near the back left of the restaurant. It was a table for six, yet he was the only one there, on the booth side at the corner furthest from the adjacent wall. Before him was a miniature hotplate and a white ceramic plate with multiple slices of thin-cut gyutan. Nine medallions were present on his plate, while two were on the grill, sizzling away. Using his wooden chopsticks, Shin flipped over the slice that was still rare on top, just as it started to curl at the ends, and then picked up the one with the well-done exposed side. He brought it to his mouth and brought the hot beef into his mouth with one bite. He closed his lips and started chewing, silent in comparison to the persistent sizzling.

Business at NO BEEF NO LIFE 2nd was uncharacteristically slow in the evening hours for which it was open. Whether it was the result of fear of another battle-triggered quarantine lockdown, or just an off day, was unclear. Even so, the number of patrons was lesser. Not only was Shin the only one at a large table, but several other people came in either ones or twos. A couple in their 20’s sat at a small table, snacking on appetizers while waiting for their food. Two older men sat at the bar, one slurping up chilled noodles and the other downing a glass of beer. And behind the counter, a thirtysomething worker in a white chef uniform and hat pressed a piece of rare meat against a cutting board, slicing it thin into pieces to be served for present and future customers. As the worker took his arm off the meat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his exposed forearm, the bell by the entrance chimed. Another customer. Or rather, customers, as told by the multiple footsteps against the wood floor.

Shin swallowed his first gyutan medallion and picked up the second off the hotplate with his chopsticks, opening his mouth in preparation to eat it.

“Well now, look who it is.”

The sudden feminine voice made Shin stop in his tracks, before the beef could even go past his lips. He glanced up at who stood before him. As he did, more voices of the same gender chimed in.

“It must be awfully lonely there, sitting by yourself.”

“You could really use some cheering up, sweetie~.”

“So, whaddaya say?”

Standing there, across the table from him, were his admirers. Utsugi stood in front, dressed in a white T-shirt with dark sleeves, short enough to barely expose her midriff, and high-waist jean shorts that stopped an inch above the midpoint of her thighs. She stood with her hands behind her back, leaning forward some as she smiled at Shin. Standing directly behind her to the left was Shirei, in a long-sleeved pink shirt with darker sleeves and a gray skirt, smirking as one hand rested just above her hip. To the right of her, on Utsugi’s other side, was Chikuru, dressed in a purple tee with really short sleeves and darker trim whose hem started just before where her cleavage would start, and a black pencil skirt that stopped at her knees, resting her elbow against her opposite hand as she held her hand, index and middle digits extended, against her cheek. Her smile was closer in sweetness to Utsugi’s than Shirei’s. In back, to Shin’s left and right respectively, were Yukisa and Akari. The former wore a tan button-up blouse and black skinny pants, crossing her arms as she glanced off to the side with a pout, while the latter wore a ghost white long-sleeve shirt and blue jeans, maintaining her monotone expression as her right hand lightly pressed against her upper left arm.

“Room for five more?” Utsugi asked, tilting her head to the side and grinning wide with a soft chuckle.

Shin looked at the five girls, here by total coincidence, for a few seconds more, his mouth having closed up as his thoughts moved from eating to processing his response. Once those seconds were up, the indeterminate expression on his mouth morphed into a small smile.

“Yeah. Go right ahead.”

********

It may have been nothing more than their presence, but for as barren as the influx of customers was following the admirers’ arrival, things got a little livelier within NO BEEF NO LIFE 2nd. Outside was much livelier, and even then, it was just the footsteps and commotion of passersby outside the restaurant, the spotlights to either corner of the sign above the front door were on, brightening it up alongside all the other establishment signage in Kabukicho that evening.

“So, how’ve things been with you lately?”

Following his earlier words of approval of their sitting in, the girls settled into the remaining five seats at Shin’s table. Chikuru sat next to Shin on the booth side, while Yukisa sat next to her. Across from Shin on the chair side was Utsugi, with Shirei to her left, and Akari to _her_ left. None of the girls had food yet, but they didn’t mind the lack. Instead, they opted to talk with Shin, over the quiet chill-out music playing over the restaurant P.A., with Shin himself starting the conversation as he took another thin gyutan medallion off the grill.

“You all seem to be doing well, especially after last week’s incident.” He popped the beef into his mouth and chewed it up.

Yukisa crossed her arms and looked up with closed eyes in arrogance. “You _bet_ we have, no thanks to _you_!”

“Now, now, Yukisa, calm down,” Chikuru said, turning to Yukisa and holding up one hand.

“Personally, I’m surprised we got over it so fast,” Utsugi said, resting her chin on her crossed-over hands. “Not to mention all we went through beforehand…”

Shirei closed her eyes and shuddered in place. “Ohh, just _thinking_ about it makes my skin crawl!” She crossed her arms over her chest as she looked down with a blush forming across her face. “The sick, twisted, _perverted_ things they did to us back there…”

Utsugi grunted softly, looking down and blushing softly.

“I dunno, I actually quite enjoyed it!” Chikuru confessed, looking up at the ceiling with her hand to her cheek, also blushing. It was enough to get a silent doubletake of surprise out of Yukisa, that was for sure. Even so, she lowered her head, blushing harder. “Though they could’ve been a little less forceful~.”

“Hm.” Akari grunted, nodding in agreement.

Yukisa leaned forward a little more, putting her hands on the table. “Forget what they did to us, _I’m_ just pissed Kizuka didn’t bother untying us the moment he showed up!” As she made her exclamation, she pointed down the table at Shin, who swallowed the last of his present gyutan. “I even begged him and everything!”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t understand your gag-speak,” Shin remarked sharply, ignoring Yukisa’s angered teeth-gritting as he closed his eyes and pointed his chopsticks at the ceiling. “Besides, you were gonna be untied anyway, so why rush the inevitable?”

“Hmph!” Yukisa grunted, turning back and crossing her arms again with a very much tsundere pout.

“Look, enough about _us_ , alright? Tell us about _you_ , Shin,” Shirei said as she pointed at him with her index. “How’s your first week after graduation been?”

“Oh, uneventful. Mostly lazing about and wandering around town.” He brought his chopsticks back onto the plate, picking up another slice of gyutan and placing it on the grill, making it sizzle right away. “My parents have been pushing for me to get a job soon, but I gotta squeeze in all the relaxation time I can get first, y’know?”

“Of course,” Chikuru replied. “You gotta decompress after everything you’ve been through, right, Shin dear?”

“Hmm.”

“That’s fine,” Shirei continued, “but you gotta do _more_ than just that. What’re you gonna do once you’re all rested up?”

At the bespectacled girl’s question, Utsugi grinned, almost mischievously. “Oh, _I_ know what he’s gonna do… You’re gonna go after Muchise, aren’tcha, Shin?”

Shin’s chopsticks stopped in place just as he prepared to flip over the cooking slice. He paused for a few seconds, his mouth open in the slightest surprise at Utsugi’s words. After processing her question, he smiled and answered.

“Naturally. Though at _this_ point, I don’t know if I _should_.” He flipped the gyutan over, letting the other side cook for a while. “Everyone around me thinks the effort isn’t worth it, that it’s too dangerous to even try. That, and I lost touch with the only other person who thinks otherwise.”

As Shin went on, the girls listened, their undivided attention paid to him. Their eyes were open, their mouths almost closed, completely invested. Even Yukisa didn’t try to put up an aloof front, instead showing just as much interest and concern in what Shin had to say regarding his recent efforts.

“And after what happened to you five…” He swiftly swiped the gyutan off the hotplate with his utensils. “I don’t think I can face the Kunoichi and succeed in taking her back.”

Quietly, he popped the gyutan into his mouth and silently chewed it up. Apart from the background music, the table was completely silent.

A silence that was broken by a one-syllable chuckle of amusement from one of the girls’ mouths. Yukisa’s mouth.

“That’s _it_? _That’s_ what you’re worried about?”

Shin perked up mid-chew, slowly turning to Yukisa in surprise at her response, and the slight giggles that followed.

“S-Sorry, Kizuka, but…” Just then, she burst into laughter, slamming her fist on the table as she closed her eyes and brought her head down, fighting back the tears of amusement. “You’re such an _idiot_!”

As she continued laughing, the other girls closed their eyes and giggled as well, Chikuru holding her hand up to her mouth for variety.

After looking at their amusement and swallowing his gyutan, Shin faced forward in disbelief. “Huh?”

“Come on, Shin!” Utsugi said, breaking out of her own fit of laughter as her hand landed on his left shoulder. “Really, _you_ giving up on Muchise? That isn’t like you at _all_!”

“It’s not hard to see you’re dedicated to her,” Chikuru commented, “moreso than anyone else we know.”

“Definitely,” Akari chimed in.

Shin blinked once as he looked at them in a mix of disbelief and realization; both at their words, as well as his own.

“You even went to the trouble of confronting us over her disappearance, just to see if we took her or not!”

“To be fair, _that_ was very uncalled for,” Yukisa stated, closing her eyes and crossing her arms in an apparent return to form. “But…” She opened her blues and glanced at Shin, blushing some. “It was also rather bold.”

“I’ll admit, we had our fair share of jealousy towards you and Muchise in the past,” Chikuru confessed as she looked down, shaking her head twice. “But I guess there’s no stopping true love, now is there?”

“It was a good run, getting to crush on and get close to you in our last year at Sadameicho. But that time has passed. We’ve moved on, and so should you.”

Shin’s eyes widened at Akari’s words, a soft gasp escaping his lips.

“Get over your worries and go after Miss Yokoshima.”

“That’s right,” Shirei said with a nod, putting up her fists in excitement. “Go out there and get Muchise back!”

“Tell her how you really feel, too!” Utsugi exclaimed, hands held up and intertwined as lovey-dovey as her tone of voice. “Let it all out for her!”

“And show those damned kunoichi who’s boss, while you’re at it!” Yukisa punched the air in front of her, grinning slightly.

“You can do it, Shin,” Chikuru said, placing both of her hands on Shin’s right, which rested on the table with the chopsticks off to the side, squeezing both tight. “We believe in you.”

The contact Chikuru made with him made Shin’s cheeks flush red, but not so much out of embarrassment this time. After staying silent for that whole minute the girls took to encourage him, Shin smiled once more. As genuine as he could muster without forcing it, not even a little.

“You know, for all the hell you put me through this past year, hearing those words from you all is just what I needed.”

As he spoke, Shin stood from his seat, looking to face all five girls the best he could. Utsugi looked up at him with admiration, hands still intertwined by her cheeks. Shirei grinned wider as her fists rested on the table. Akari smiled, wider than she ever had before. Yukisa crossed her arms, grinning in approval. And Chikuru looked up at him directly, mouth open and eyes sparkling in even greater belief in him.

“Thank you, girls. I won’t let you down. What’s more…” He raised his right hand and balled it into a fist, holding it up as he smirked wide in renewed confidence, his eyes glistening in what dim a light there was. “I won’t let Muchise down either!”

********

**“To be honest, the frustration and insecurity I felt about continuing on was genuine.”**

A minute or two passed following Shin and the girls left NO BEEF NO LIFE 2nd, at which point they decided to part ways. At one of the pedestrian street intersections in Kabukicho to the north of the yakiniku restaurant, they split up; Shin in one direction, the admirers in another. They walked off together, all looking back and waving to him in departure. Utsugi had her hand raised above her head, while the rest kept theirs at more modest heights as they moved further away.

**“It’s just natural for me to worry like that.”**

Shin, meanwhile, stayed in place, looking back and waving goodbye to them. Once he got his point across, he faced forward, his hands in his pockets and his gaze turned up at the sky.

**“But I can’t let those concerns distract me forever. Not when there’s a task I have ahead of me.”**

The overcast had finally dispersed. What clouds there were in the dark blue sky, framed by the glowing signs lining the streetside buildings, were sporadic, drifting off slowly. There were no stars to discern the spots of clear sky as such – a consequence of being in the big city – but the bright sliver of light on the right edge of the new moon was enough proof.

**“But I can’t accomplish it alone. To succeed, I need help.”**

He remained standing for a few seconds more, his head held high and a smile on his lips. He was ready to continue.

**“What I _need_ is my partner.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Civil twilight is the phase of twilight where the sky is brightest, taking place before sunrise and after sunset.  
> 2\. The Ome Highway Pedestrian Bridge is a technically nameless pedestrian bridge along the Ome Highway in western Shinjuku. It is commonly used for views of downtown Shinjuku, Kabukicho in particular, to the east.   
> 3\. The Shinjuku Nomura Building is a 55-story skyscraper in Shinjuku that was constructed in 1978. It is best known for housing the headquarters of automobile component manufacturer Keihin and a top-floor observation deck.  
> 4\. The Sompo Japan Building is a 49-story skyscraper in Shinjuku that, like the Shinjuku Nomura Building it sits next to, was constructed in 1976. It serves as the corporate headquarters for Sompo Japan Insurance.  
> 5\. The Shinjuku Mitsui Building is a 55-story skyscraper in Shinjuku that was completed in 1974. It is owned by major real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan.  
> 6\. The black cat Shin sees outside the Shibuya Police Building is a reference to Amanojaku from the 2000 anime Ghost Stories, but with the eye colors swapped.


	3. Act 2

Shin brought his hand forward and rapped his knuckles against the painted vinyl door three times, pulling back the fingers he used to knock with.

“Hey, Mr. Tanoshiba! Are you in there? It’s me, Shin! I came here to talk!”

He stood on the second-floor walkway of Naokuu’s rental apartment complex, in front of the second door down from the stairwell at the end. It was morning out, the sky a bright blue with the occasional clouds floating by. His outfit of choice for the day was a plain off-white long-sleeved shirt and another pair of blue jeans. He waited in the shade of the covered walkway for a few seconds, expecting an answer to come from behind the brown door. Those seconds passed, and he knocked again, twice and harder in succession, using the knuckles connecting his fingers to his hand instead.

“I’m serious, Mr. Tanoshiba, open up! I’ve been calling you for the past few weeks, and you haven’t been picking up! The least you could do is meet me face-to-face!”

As the teenager’s tone got louder, the furthest door on the first floor of the complex opened, a middle-aged man stepping out onto the shaded concrete passage between the structure and the green fence separating it from the parking lot. The wifebeater-clad landlord rubbed the back of his head and looked up with a groan, the shadow of the grid-patterned fence superimposed on his annoyed visage.

Shin paused again after his next call, waiting for an answer through the door staring him in the face, with no distinguishing characteristics about it, not even an apartment number. Shin lowered his head with a twitch and gritted his teeth, groaning in frustration at the failing response. He had no other option. He curled his hand into a fist and started banging on the door, speaking from the first strike.

“Dammit, just _listen_ to me! Can’t you stop what you’re doing for five minutes and let me in already!? I’m not playing games here, I have to talk to you, and I need to do it _now_ , you hear me!?” He punctuated his angered and desperate cries with another bang.

“Augh, shut _up_ already, won’tcha?”

But those cries ceased, and his expression likewise, as he heard the voice of the landlord. He pulled back and turned to face the unflattering man, still scratching the back of his head as he came forward from the stairs.

“Scream like that any louder, and you’ll wake up my tenants.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” Shin apologized, clasping his hands together and bowing.

The landlord grunted, lowering his arm and sticking his thumb in the hem of his sweatpants.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but…” He sheepishly smiled and pointed at the door. “Naokuu Tanoshiba _does_ live here, doesn’t he?”

“Why you askin’? He a friend of yours?”

“More or less, yes,” Shin said, closing his eyes and lowering his hand.

“Well that’s too bad, ‘cause he _doesn’t_ live here, not anymore.”

Shin opened his eyes, his smile fading. “W-What?”

“You heard right.” The landlord pointed behind himself with his thumb. “I evicted his ass just yesterday.”

“B-But that’s impossible,” Shin said as he turned his head to look out over the balcony. “His car’s right the–”

He paused with a startled gasp at what he saw.

“It’s a cryin’ shame, ain’t it, kid?” the landlord remarked, bringing his hand to his hip as he joined Shin in looking down at the parking lot beyond the railing.

The lot consisted of a single aisle with nine parking spaces on either side, the left facing an adjacent residence and the right facing the road. The number of occupied spaces was scarce, but enough to keep the lot from feeling overly barren. Three spaces from the complex on the left side was a red Nissan Maxima sedan, and four spaces from that was a black Toyota Yaris hatchback. On the right side were, in the second space from the building, a silver Toyota Corolla; in the fifth, a dark blue Daihatsu Move; and in the ninth, a white Acura RLX. Not a single sign of Naokuu’s metallic blue Civic to be found.

“The poor bastard never really did much, besides go to work and come straight back. A real diligent loner type. It was only a matter of time before he lost it.”

“Lost it?”

“Yeah. Punched out his own car window in a fit of rage. Didn’t even bother patchin’ it up or nothin’.”

“Scary…” Shin’s expression of shock at the lacking vehicle in the lot below lessened, but he remained concerned as he kept gazing down.

“After that, he hid himself away for two whole weeks. Didn’t come out for anything ‘til I forced him out.”

“But why?” Shin turned back to the landlord. “Why stay home that long? Last I checked, he has a job.”

The landlord blinked and glanced back at Shin, grinning wider. “Last _you_ checked. Word is he was suspended without pay, but I know for a fact that _really_ means he was fired.”

“Wait, _fired_? Seriously!?” Shin backed up, the shock returning and his concern greater. His eyes trembled as his mouth stood ever so slightly agape as he processed what he was just told.

“Suspended, fired, either way, he refused to pay his rent.” The landlord then crossed his arms. “Tenants who don’t pay their rent are unfit tenants, and unfit tenants get their asses evicted. It’s as simple as that.”

“Do you know where he is _now_?”

“Are you _kidding_? What my tenants do after they leave this place is _their_ business, _not_ mine!”

“I see…” Shin looked down, grunting softly as his eyes trembled more forcefully, as if he were on the verge of crying, or at the very least admitting defeat.

“There is _one_ thing, though.”

“Hn?” He looked up with interest, his eyes ceasing to shake.

The landlord turned and pointed behind him with his index finger. “The day your buddy holed himself up, a police car from Shibuya parked itself across the street, right over there. A couple of men in black suits were inside instead of regular cops, and they just sat there, lookin’ over here and not much else.”

He pointed at the street next to the lot, at the area where the car that Gojiki’s lackeys sat in previously was.

“And yesterday, when Tanoshiba left this place in the dust, they started followin’ him. I’m thinkin’ they were keepin’ watch on him this whole time. It’s a long shot, but if you can find a car like that, you’ll prob’ly find him too.”

The landlord’s words enlightened Shin greatly. His sadness at the bad news preceding was gone, and instead his eyes widened in the realization of this once more resurging hope.

The landlord lowered his arm, closing his eyes and grinning. “Though if you ask _me_ , a blue Honda with a broken backseat window should be _pretty_ damn obvious.” He snickered softly.

“Alright, I’ll go and find it, then!” Shin brought his arms together again and bowed to the landlord. “Thank you, sir, you’ve been a real help!”

And just like that, Shin took off, dashing past the landlord and to the stairs at the end of the walkway, making the turn before going down step by step. The landlord turned and watched Shin depart, an affected smile on his crusty face as he spoke to himself.

“Please, kid, I don’t _deserve_ your thanks. Not after I sent your friend packin’ to god knows where.”

********

Though he didn’t have much to go on, Shin remembered what Naokuu’s former landlord told him, keeping the hints to Naokuu’s location in mind as he dashed across Tokyo in search of the detective. He ran along the sidewalk parallel to the northern edge of Tamagawa Street in Setagaya, buildings to his left and the structure elevating Shuto Expressway No. 3 above the six-lane arterial to his right. Pedestrian traffic to his left and right were sporadic, and there weren’t many people in front of him, so he hurried on without worry, putting one arm in front of the other with each individual stride.

He stopped at a small police box built into the first floor of a building of at least ten stories in the northern tip of Meguro Ward. Shin stood a foot or two away from the door in as he spoke to a policeman on the other side of the frame, dressed in a light blue dress shirt and darker sleeveless vest with matching pants and a police cap. In response to Shin’s query, the thirtysomething officer simply shook his head. Shin didn’t seem too offended by his lack of answers, instead bowing in thanks for his cooperation.

He resumed running, inhaling and exhaling as he passed more pedestrians by in his continued traverse along Tamagawa Street, and the streets that followed.

His next stop was in Harajuku, at a three-story building whose front entrance was covered up with a metal curtain, despite it being mid-morning. Sitting on the steps leading to the store entrance on the second floor of the establishment was a woman in her mid-20’s with short black hair with two red streaks in the bangs, plus dark purple eyeshadow, a pair of metal studs at the bridge of her nose, and multiple ring piercings: two at the top of each ear, two over her left eyebrow, and one over her right. She was dressed in an unbuttoned black cardigan over a blouse that was mauve fading to white from top to bottom, a pleated black skirt that stopped past mid-thigh, and dark purple thigh-high stockings that ended in a pair of black pumps. After pulling her cigarette back and blowing out the smoke, she responded to Shin’s request for assistance, pointing behind her with her thumb as she looked back in kind. Taking that as the direction where he’d likely find either Naokuu or the squad car tailing him, he bowed to her in thanks.

He resumed running once more, his gaze more determined as his periodic breaths for air continued.

In Shinjuku, he stood on the other side of a green chain-link fence, peeking out from behind an informational placard at the parking lot beyond. His eyes were on a blue Honda Civic in the closest space. It wasn’t Naokuu’s, though. The outer hull wasn’t metallic in color, the broken backseat window was on the passenger’s side, and it was patched up with white cardboard and duct tape.

So he kept running, his pace slower but his focus as determined as ever.

Further north in Shinjuku, he found another squad car affiliated with the Shibuya Police, parked on the side of a narrow residential road. One of the two uniformed beat cops in the car relaxed in the front passenger’s seat, glancing out the side window in boredom, while the other, slightly older than his companion and with shorter hair, stood outside the driver’s door with the transceiver for the car’s two-way radio in hand. After holding it up to his ear for a few seconds, he spoke into it, let go of the button, and talked to Shin. He pointed behind the squad car, to Shin’s left, in the direction of where he was headed next. As with the others he asked, he bowed in thanks.

He continued on at his previous pace, his head tilted back and eyes closed as his breaths became more ragged and tired.

The lunch rush traffic in the Minami-Ikebukuro neighborhood of Toshima was fairly tight, especially at the road just south of Ikebukuro Station going under both the Yamanote and Seibu-Ikebukuro lines. Multiple cars, both subcompact, full-size, and trucks alike, were stuck in a slow-moving jam in both directions, the two-lane eastbound and one-lane westbound barely budging. In contrast, Shin emerged from the covered pedestrian passage adjacent to the westbound lane, attached to the bridge supporting the Seibu-Ikebukuro line as designated by the blue-on-white “西武池袋線” text above the underpass. He made it down the steps and jogged over to the three-way intersection separating the first underpass from the second.

After that, he continued, though he slowed down considerably. His arms moved with less vigor, to the point where his forearms were barely raised in an attempt to keep himself looking like he was pushing forward. His head returned forward, but even so, he was even more tired than before.

Then he reached his destination, as given to him by the beat cops from earlier. A structure sitting at the street corner within one of its borders, consisting of three rows of thirty-two white paper lanterns supported by metal bars separating each row, designated the location in question, via the eight middle lanterns in the second row.

池袋へようこそ★

Welcome to Ikebukuro ★

Before long, he stopped running altogether, instead opting to drag his feet. With his head lowered, Shin’s breaths became wheezes as he desperately tried to catch his breath as he moved through the sparse crowd, as fast as his aching legs could take him.

They took him to an intersection only barely a block away from the greeting lanterns. A mess of power lines spanned across his field of vision, three stories above ground, intersecting and running both over and under another route of overhead lines perpendicular to it, flanked on either side by a four-story building. The cloudy blue sky of the early afternoon hung above this crossroads of both streets and electric power, its brightness only emphasized by the thin black lines blotting portions of it out from above.

It was there, at that intersection, that Shin finally came to a stop. He bent his legs at the knee as he pushed his hands against the caps, gasping for breath in recovery after running so far for so long. Beads of sweat ran down the sides of his head and cheeks as he stood catching his lost air. After a few seconds worth of sighs, he looked up, his gaze weary yet undefeated.

“Damn… I’m getting nowhere just running around like this… But they _did_ say the car was somewhere here in Bukuro…” He took his hands off his knees and moved them to the small of his back, arching his spine to reinvigorate himself. “Guess I’d better keep looking.”

And so he did. He walked another block or two, at a normal strolling pace, as he scoured the southeast corner of Ikebukuro with his eyes, in continued search of either vehicle that would clue him in to Naokuu’s location. As he walked up one of the narrow northbound streets, the asphalt between buildings leaving room for barely a single car to use as a shortcut, he passed by a decently sized nook between a coin parking lot and another building. The pavement was faded in comparison to the fresh blacktop on the street, and cracked in places too. Somehow matching the dilapidated state of the surface, a vehicle with a broken backseat window was parked atop it. As Shin passed the car, he took notice of the window in question, the only glass left being one of the bottom corners, which even then was brimming with enough granular cracks to fall apart with a single tap of the finger. He stopped, this time out of his own free will than the exhaustion that overpowered it minutes earlier, and turned to face the window. Looking in, he grinned.

“Bingo.”

The vehicle parked in the nook, facing the direction Shin traveled towards, was a metallic blue Honda Civic. The remnants of the broken passenger’s seat window were still scattered all across the right half of the back seat, both as small chunks and larger pieces. In addition, there were multiple parking tickets grouped together in front of the driver’s seat, tucked under one of the windshield wipers, and a yellow triangular wheel clamp was fitted onto the driver’s side front wheel, locking it in place.

“This is Mister Tanoshiba’s car, no question about it. That must mean they’re closeby.” With one third of his physical end objectives found, Shin jogged off in search of the other two.

Upon reaching the end of the narrow street, Shin took a few extra steps onto the brick-laid sidewalk of the street it emptied out onto. As the occasional pedestrian moved in either direction along the sidewalk, he started looking in what direction he could for any immediate sign. With his hand held to his forehead like a salute, he looked forward. Then he looked to the left. Then to the right. His face lit up after a second’s gaze in that direction.

“Ah! There it is!”

Across the street, facing west as it was parked the next block over, was the squad car. A silver-and-black Mazda 2, with “渋谷区警察” or “Shibuya Ward Police” emblazoned on the side. In the front two seats were, as opposed to beat cops, two men in black suits; the driver with short hair, a mustache and goatee, and the passenger clean-shaven with a ponytail. Gojiki’s lackeys. The former sat at the wheel, staring forward as he occasionally tapped the wheel with his right hand. The latter, meanwhile, leaned back with his chin resting against his right hand. After a few seconds of loitering, he turned his head to the right and tilted it slightly upwards, looking out the driver’s side window.

Shin gasped, taking note of the ponytailed lackey’s actions, and mimicked them, looking up just as he did.

Their sights were on the same building, a thin six-story building with steel exterior and tinted windows, its curvilinear façade sandwiched between a four-story building set back further with numerous vending machines crowding its first floor, and a six-story apartment complex with a much wider front. Two signs hung from the left side of the building, alerting pedestrians and drivers alike as to what establishments were on what floors of the building. The larger sign, a dark red spanning across floors two through five, read “晴れ着の○昌”, or “Maru-sho Fine Clothes” in calligraphic text. But the sign of interest for Shin and the ponytailed lackey was the one above that, a dark black with sleek-looking text.

マージナルネットカフェ 6F

Marginal Net Café – 6F

“A net café?” Shin blinked once as he eyed the sign for some time extra. After that, he lifted his shoulders for a moment in a low-effort shrug. “It’s worth a shot,” he said to himself, turning fully right and lightly jogging down the brick sidewalk to the building housing his ultimate destination for the day.

********

The lobby of the net café, on the top floor of the clothing rental establishment the squad car was parked outside, was small, befitting the narrow front portion of the building. Facing the curved sliver of a window at the top of the floor was the front desk, a chest-level structure shaped like an arc with a thin counter on one side and a wider, stomach-level desk in back. It backed up to a black wall, bearing the same text-only logo as portrayed on the sign outside, with a clock placed above the text. It was an analog, white with black numbers and hands, plus a red hand to count down the seconds. The present time was 1:55, the second hand ticking from the 10 to the 11. Manning the desk was a single man in his thirties, dressed in a drab polo shirt that stretched thanks to his above-average weight, with neatly kempt black hair and square-frame glasses with a thick rim. He sat in his leather office chair as he faced the most recent person to arrive at the desk.

“Hello,” he greeted. “Suite for one today?”

“Um, actually, I’m here to meet someone,” Shin replied, bringing up his arms up and resting them against the edge of the counter. “I heard he’s staying here long-term, so I stopped by to check up on him.”

“We have several patrons like that here, sir, you’ll have to be more specific.”

“Uh, he came in just yesterday?”

“Let me see…” The clerk picked up a reporter’s notebook from the lower half of the desk and looked at it, adjusting his glasses. Transcribed on the page it was turned to was a list, titled “難民 - 2084年4月”, or “Refugees – April 2084”. There were no names, let alone any other personal stats. Just numbers and dates. On the open page, there were only two.

47 - 4月2日 - 602

48 - 4月7日 - 609

47 – April 2 – 602

48 – April 7 – 609

“Hmm, yes, we _do_ have someone like that here.” He set down the notepad and shot Shin a grin that wasn’t so much insincere as it was heavily smug, the ceiling light reflecting off his thick-rimmed glasses. “He’s in suite 609, though he’s probably not there at the moment.” He snickered behind his teeth as his grin widened slightly.

Shin moved his arms off the counter and stepped back from the desk. “Oh, I’m sure he _is_.”

********

Suite 609. The black sign next to the solid-colored door of a lighter tint was where the three-digit number for the room was located, the white text making it pop so passersby wouldn’t miss it. Unlike several of the other door signs, there was no non-smoking symbol. All there was besides the number, on the bottom half of the sign, was a window looking in at a red-colored tab that read “使用中”, or “Occupied”.

The ring-shaped fluorescent light, boxed in by five shoji frames, brightened the booth-sized suite from overhead, emitting a low buzz that echoed throughout the confined space. However, for as persistent as it got, that hum was occasionally interrupted by other noise. In this case, a sigh, followed by an expulsion of near-transparent smoke into the air, boxed in by the tan ceiling and light gray walls.

Naokuu sat in one of the two sides of the black leather booth that made up the entirety of the miniature room, facing an open, generic black laptop plugged into the wall outlet with a thicker-than-normal power cord. His facial hair hadn’t changed much in length since his eviction, and neither had the clothes on his back experienced any overall change. After exhaling the smoke from his most recent drag, he lowered his hand for a moment, tapping the burning end and letting the ashen remnants of the tobacco fall into the sleek black ashtray, bearing three notches and filled to the near-brim with old cigarettes. He didn’t extinguish what he had, though. After a brief moment of letting the stick sit free of his lips, he brought it back, letting it sit in his mouth in favor of another slow intake.

As he brought the cigarette back, the door opened with a dull squeak. After that, he heard footsteps across what little floor there was underneath the wooden tabletop, the closing of the door, and then the entrant ease themselves down against the opposite seat. He waited two seconds before acknowledging what he saw in front of him, with a brief, unenthusiastic grin.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Shin?”

“Yeah,” Shin replied, resting his arms on the table. “Longer than I’d have liked, personally. I’d never have pegged you as being cyber-homeless.”

“That’s strange. I never told you I got evicted.”

“You never told me you got _discharged_ , either. Luckily, your landlord filled me in on everything.”

Naokuu lowered his head and closed his eyes. “It wasn’t a discharge, it’s indefinite suspension.”

“Look, whatever it is, I didn’t come here to catch up. I want to know if you’ve figured out where the Kunoichi’s hideout is. Tell me that, and we can go and save Muchise, just like we agreed upon.”

“Not happening, Shin.”

Shin blinked once, his eyes widening at Naokuu’s answer. “W-What?” He blinked again.

“You heard me. I can’t help you out, not with how things stand right now.” He pulled his cigarette back and exhaled some more smoke.

“But the police are still investigating it, right? Your suspension shouldn’t have _changed_ that.”

“The police were _never_ investigating it. It was all _me_ , and _only_ me.”

Shin blinked again, his eyes widened slightly further in disbelief.

“Okay… But that shouldn’t have affected anything. Even like _this_ , you should see things through to the end. I mean, you _are_ a detective, aren’t you, Mister Tanoshiba?”

Naokuu brought the cigarette back to his mouth. He inhaled slowly, and then, without pulling back, puffed out some more smoke from the other side of his mouth.

“Please, I’m no detective. I’m not even a cop. All I _really_ am is a glorified office worker, no different from your run-of-the-mill salaryman.” He grinned again, this time in faux amusement. “Heh. But now I’m not even _that_ high. Just an insect for those jerks outside to crush if I do anything they don’t like.”

“Is _that_ what this is about? Come on, Mister Tanoshiba, there are _bigger_ things to worry about than that!”

Shin raised his eyebrow in further disbelief, his concerned frown widening and twisting into one of slight annoyance. Naokuu didn’t react to it in the slightest, just looking at Shin with his blank, disinterested stare.

“Remember those girls from Sadameicho? The ones we _thought_ were the culprits at first? Last week, the Kunoichi kidnapped them, all _five_ of them, and set them up with a message for me, telling me to back off or _else_.” He looked down, his eyes trembling as he gritted his teeth after every sentence. “Believe me, I spent a week doing _nothing_ after that, fearing they’d attack me or my family if I dared to continue. But you know what? I got _over_ it!” He raised his head, looking straight at Naokuu. “I’m not gonna let those damn ninja intimidate me, and you shouldn’t let the police do the same to _you_! I don’t know what made you act like this, but you can’t just give up hope that easily, Mister Tanoshiba! You _can’t_!”

As Shin caught his breath after his mini-rant, Naokuu just stared into space, the smoke continuing to trail off his cigarette as it was barely held in place between his ajar lips. Eventually, without so much as blinking or shifting his vision, he replied.

“You just don’t get it, _do_ you, Shin?”

Shin’s expression remained steadfast in its concern, but he paused to listen to what the former detective had to say.

“You wanna know _why_ it was just you and me working on this? It’s not because my superiors wouldn’t believe the Kunoichi are behind it. No, it’s because they don’t care about it at _all_.” Naokuu lowered his head and sadly grinned. “Muchise’s abduction, the serial kidnappings, they’re all just afterthoughts to them. It might not have seemed that way from all that I said, the day we first met, but that doesn’t change how it came across.” He raised his head, staring forward. “I lied to you, Shin.”

Shin kept staring back at Naokuu, the bags under his eyes returning as the realization of the situation’s truth started to set in.

“Hell, I’ve been lying to _myself_ ,” he said, glancing down at the pitch black laptop screen, and his reflection within. “Here I was, thinking being a police officer would be glamorous. Arresting criminals, solving cases, receiving praise from civilian and co-worker alike, that sort of thing.” He brought his hand up to his cigarette again, pinching the present midpoint between his thumb and index. “I even became a detective over a plain old beat cop ‘cause I thought I’d make a real difference that way. But instead, all I got was the cold, hard truth.”

He pulled his cigarette away from his mouth, pointed the lit end downwards, and pushed it into the middle of the ashtray, extinguishing it amongst the other used cigarettes. His smile grew wider, his inner despair seeping through the marks at either end.

“This country’s police system is a _joke_. They don’t _care_ about public welfare, all they care about is not getting on the yakuza’s bad side during their little time of war. Kidnapping, murder, even _rape_ , they just ignore because the damn mob _might_ be behind them!” He looked down, his eyes shaking and his right one twitching in frustration. “And here I am, trying to do the right _thing_ for society, and they up and _punish_ me for it! They took my _badge_ , they took my _pay_ , they even took what privacy of mine they can get their _hands_ on! All because I tried to save _one_ girl!”

As he listened, Shin’s frown returned to a normal state, though it soon started to widen again at the mention of Muchise.

Naokuu exhaled softly, raising his head slightly. “Face it, Shin. I can’t help you against the Kunoichi, not when I have the police breathing down my neck.” He closed his eyes. “That’s the reality I’ve gotta face from here on in. I swear, I _never_ should’ve taken this case. Better yet, I never should’ve become a cop to _begin_ with.”

As he made his last statement, Naokuu raised his hands and prepared to close the laptop.

But before his hands could make contact with the lid, it was suddenly slammed down. And following the harsh click came an even more abrupt voice.

“Don’t you even _give_ me that shit!!”

Naokuu jolted in his seat, snapping out of his daze with a blink as his eyes widened and his relaxed smile vanished.

“You wanna bitch about how the system is unfair? Go ahead, I’m not stopping you! But don’t you _dare_ tell me you regret becoming a cop! That you _regret_ taking this case! Not after everything we’ve worked towards! You _want_ to save Muchise, I _know_ you do! Hell, if it wasn’t for _you_ , we wouldn’t have even _gotten_ this far!”

Shin stood up from his seat as he ranted to Naokuu, staring him down in fury at his poor-me monologue, and yet speaking in a borderline desperate tone, occasionally shaking his head with his more punctuated statements all the while. Naokuu simply watched and listened, his mouth widening in deepening shock.

“We’re _this_ close to rescuing her, and you’re backing out just because you’re afraid of risking arrest over it? Don’t _kid_ me like that!” Suddenly, he grabbed Naokuu by his shirt collar and pulled him forward, the man grunting as he stared at the angry teenager leaning before him. “You wouldn’t be acting so depressed if you were _serious_ , would you? Admit it! You’re _reluctant_ to give in to what your superiors want, and that’s the _truth_!”

He pushed Naokuu away as he let go of his shirt, the shaken detective falling back into his seat with another grunt. But Shin didn’t sit as he pushed himself back either. He stayed standing, his hands returning to the tabletop. The bottoms of his palms pressed against the wooden surface, as did his fingertips. He looked down at his hands, his voice calming in kind.

“You’re right. Out there waiting for you in the real world are those ready and willing to take you down, just for doing what they’re afraid to. But there’s someone _else_ , someone _also_ waiting for you beyond this little hiding spot.” He raised his head up, fixing his gaze on Naokuu once more. “And that’s Muchise. The Kinky Kunoichi have her in their clutches, and out of everyone there is, everyone who _cares_ , _we’re_ the only ones who can save her. If there’s any reality you should be facing now, it’s _that_ one. I can’t do this solo, not without the man who helped me get to this point.” He lifted his right hand up and held it out over the table. “So, what do you say?”

His frustrated expression, having faded over the course of his speech, was replaced with a confident glare and matching grin, just as firm as the handshake he was offering.

“Are you with me, Naokuu?”

Naokuu blinked a few times as he stared up at the high school graduate across from him, having laid witness to a changing array of emotions in the past few minutes. He softly sighed through his teeth and out of his ajar mouth, taking his offer into consideration. Once he figured out his answer, he closed his eyes and smirked.

“Heh. You took the words _right_ out of my mouth there, Shin. As beaten-down as I am, I’m too stubborn to keep acting this cynical forever,” he said as he stood up from his seat, grunting through his speech as he pressed his right hand against the table.

“So you’re in?”

“Hell _yeah_ I’m in,” Naokuu exclaimed, grasping Shin’s hand and shaking it tight with his right hand as he placed his left on his shoulder. “And I’m goin’ for the long haul this time. We aren’t stopping until Muchise’s safe and sound.”

“Just what I wanted to hear,” Shin agreed with a nod, closing his eyes as his smile brightened.

But then, he lowered his head, his smile fading and his eyes taking on concern once more. “But before we _start_ …”

Naokuu gasped, a little surprised at Shin’s reaction, while Shin turned his head and looked towards the door.

“We’ll need to figure out how to lose your tail first.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Huh?” Shin turned back, blinking in greater surprise as the detective bore a conniving smirk.

“Trust me. I’ve got an idea.”

********

“He’s been in there a while.”

“Hn. Try a whole _day_.”

“Point is, he’s been in there too long,” the ponytailed lackey complained as he leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms and staring up at the ceiling of the squad car. “The damn fool can’t keep holing himself up from us forever.”

“Maybe,” the shorter-haired lackey said, leaning back in his seat as he gripped the top of the steering wheel. “But given how he reacted when he found out, I wouldn’t blame him if he _did_.”

It was mid-afternoon outside the building housing the Marginal Net Café, and even then, both blacksuits remained stationed outside it, their car parked in the same place as it had earlier that day. With the sun inching towards the western horizon, the sky took on a slightly dustier blue color, the clouds in the sky near-nonexistent. The time of day didn’t matter to either man, though. Just the task given to them.

“But the plan will remain the same?”

“Naturally. We keep waitin’ here ‘til he’s sick of hiding. And we don’t start movin’ ‘til he steps out that front door. And after that, there’ll _be_ no escapin’ us.”

“As if it would happen any other way.”

Unbeknownst to either lackey, Naokuu had already started following his own plan. Inside the café, the colored tab on the bottom half of the sign for suite 609 had changed. It was now colored green, adorned with the phrase “空き”, or “Vacant”.

In the very back of the building, on the bottom level of the rear stairwell, a door leading to the outside was open. As with most doors, the wall above the frame was decorated with the image of a green man running through a white passage. Next to it was a set of kanji: “非常口”, or “Emergency Exit”, with the latter word in all-caps English below.

The door closed behind Naokuu as he stepped past the frame and into the narrow alley, sandwiched between two tall buildings that locked the passage in shadow. Shin was a distance ahead, looking back at Naokuu before gesturing with his hand for him to follow. Silently, Naokuu nodded and quickly dashed away from the door, catching up to Shin, who started running toward the alley exit as well. Away from the building, and from the squad car out front as well.

********

Over an hour had passed since their retreat, and by the time the sun had moved far enough to give the blue sky and the returning clouds a slight yellow tint, they came to a stop. At least, Shin had. He stood in the middle of the street they chose to pause on, panting heavily in recovery of breath as sweat ran down his face, his hands once again pressed against his knees. Naokuu, meanwhile, was just tens of meters away, catching up to Shin with a moderate walking pace as he stored his hands in his jacket pockets.

After catching his breath, Shin looked back at Naokuu. “I still don’t see why we had to _run_ all this way… After the workout I got looking to find you…”

“Hey, better to get a head start and _keep_ it, lest those bozos find out we bolted the first chance we got.” Naokuu blinked, tilting his head slightly to the side as he watched Shin catch a few extra breaths. “I’m just surprised you insisted on keeping in front. I’d have sworn you’d fall behind, at the rate _you’re_ gasping for breath.”

“Why _wouldn’t_ I?” Shin rose from his partially crouched position, standing straight as he turned his head and looked back at Naokuu. “I volunteered to keep you out of sight ‘til the day of our rescue mission. If you took the lead, we wouldn’t have gotten here as fast.” He took one last breath before turning fully to the left. “That’s enough talk. Let’s head inside.” He stepped forward, heading to the front door of the building situated on the downslope.

“Yeah, yeah…” Naokuu followed behind Shin, moving past the gateless front entrance and over to the house. He had no need to stop, as Shin opened the door and stepped inside, so he continued on in.

On the thin stone wall framing the entrance was a small sign, white in color and bearing a vertical surname printed in a calligraphy-style font.

木塚

Kizuka

As the front door shut behind them, Shin started taking off his shoes in the genkan. As opposed to following his lead, Naokuu just stood and looked around the inside of the house, turning his head as he took in the sights of both the stone-floored genkan, the wood-floored hallway a step above, and the white plaster walls on either side, as well as their near-immaculacy. It was enough to let him release a quiet, impressed whistle.

“Nice place you picked out.”

Shin finished taking off his shoes and stepped up onto the hallway floor. “Hey, I’m home,” he called out into the seemingly barren passage.

“Shin?”

At the sound of the boy’s voice, a small figure poked their upper body out into the hallway from the open entrance to his left. Tiny compared to the two technical adults by the door, she had short black hair decorated with a pink headband, a light pink long-sleeved shirt, a darker pink skirt and black leggings. She looked behind the wall at Shin with her bright blue eyes, and immediately beamed at the immediate sight. Joyfully, she emerged from behind and ran over to him with arms wide open.

“It’s you, Shin! Welcome home!”

In response to the younger girl running towards him, Shin closed his eyes and smiled, bending forward some as he held his arms out. “Hey there, Aika,” he said as he grabbed her by the sides of her torso and lifted her up into the air. She giggled for the second that it lasted, as he right away lowered her to a simple hold, supporting her legs with his left arm and her back with his right hand. “Did you miss me?”

“Of course!” Aika responded with just as much cheerfulness. “You’re gone so often, why _wouldn’t_ I miss my big brother?” She hugged Shin’s side, pressing her cheek against his. Shin softly chuckled at her embrace, closing one eye while looking at her with the other.

“Well, well, look who it is,” an older, more masculine voice chimed in from the same entrance.

Standing there now, looking at both Shin and Aika were their parents. His father was dressed in a white work shirt minus the tie and dark blue business pants, while his mother wore a dark long-sleeved shirt and ankle-length dress with a tan apron laid over it.

“Welcome back, Shin,” his mother greeted as she bowed with both hands joined in front of her.

“You’re home earlier than I expected.”

“I could say the same for _you_ , Dad,” Shin said.

“Hey now,” his dad replied, closing his eyes in well-meaning. “I can afford to get off work early every now and then, can’t I?” He chuckled some under his breath.

His mom, meanwhile, looked to the right and gasped softly, her warm smile fading for a moment. “Uh, not to intrude on your conversation, but…” She pointed in the direction of the genkan.

Naokuu blinked once, looking back at the older woman and her pointing finger with nonchalance and a soft grunt.

“Do you mind telling us who that man over there is?”

Shin looked back as well, his smile fading as she asked and returning after she finished. “Oh, that’s Mister Tanoshiba. He might not look it, but he’s a good friend of mine. He’s looking for a place to live for the time being, so I offered to help him out.”

“Uhh…”

Naokuu didn’t know how to respond to Shin’s nonchalant statement. Overall, he was quite surprised. Not so much by the situation he was in, especially after having agreed to it with Shin hours earlier. Instead, his awe came more from the openness expressed by the young man, how calm and collected he was in letting these strangers to him, anything but to the other know of his existence, of their relationship at the basest level. It went beyond his initial expectations, and to a great length at that. Naturally, he was at a loss for words.

“Mister Tanoshiba,” Shin resumed, turning to face Naokuu. “I’d like you to meet my family.” He paused for a second before closing his eyes and warmly smiling, a contrast to the surprised faces of his parents and sister. “And welcome to our humble abode.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The term “police box” here refers to "kōban”, a small neighborhood police station in Japan that specializes in such community policing practices as offering directions, reporting crimes, contacting emergency services, and acting as a lost and found.   
> 2\. Maru-sho fine clothes is a reference to “晴れ着の丸昌”, or “Marusho Fine Clothes”, a costume rental service in Ikebukuro specializing in kimono rentals.  
> 3\. Net café refugees, also known as “cyber-homeless”, are, as the name implies, homeless people who live at net cafés, usually in the long-term. Some of these individuals are unemployed, but more often than not, they primarily consist of individuals, employed or otherwise, who are unable to afford rent on even the cheapest of apartments in the country.


End file.
